


an artless life

by poalimal



Series: 🏴☠️ tropes ahoy! R76 edition 🏴☠️ [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Cooking, Fic in the Time of Quarantine, Gen, M/M, Recipes, and they were roommates!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24144019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poalimal/pseuds/poalimal
Summary: One can live without art, perhaps - one cannot live without food.
Relationships: Reaper | Gabriel Reyes/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Series: 🏴☠️ tropes ahoy! R76 edition 🏴☠️ [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1759780
Comments: 10
Kudos: 27





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title and summary are a play off of Chef Grant Achatz's quote: "Food is a necessary component to life. People can live without Renoir, Mozart, Gaudi, Beckett, but they cannot live without food." The title can be read at face-value (a life without skill, knowledge or guile) or literally (a life empty of creative work). The word _artless_ , in English, connotes sincerity, authenticity, and/or harmless ignorance.

Meet Gabe - 27, tired, single, bi.

By day he works at an architectural firm as a designer; by night, he sleeps. He likes horror movies, romcoms, and keeping the subtitles on. He goes to the gym once in a literal blue moon (so: never). He has a photo album somewhere, filled with ticket stubs for all the shows and concerts he went to during high school. But that was a long time ago - he's boring now. His cat Oro ran away almost a year ago, and he still puts up Missing posters. He has a tube of eyeliner slowly expiring in the pocket of one of his favourite coats.

'If you were a seasoning,' Jack tells him once, 'you would be cumin.' Sure - ok.

Jack is his new roommate - he's a chef. Or, he's in training to become one, at least. He used to be a stockbroker but he had a moral crisis or something and quit.

As a roommate, Jack is quiet, clean, and clearly in love with Gabe's kitchen. Gabe's cousin had to move out unexpectedly over the summer, and Jack was the first or second person to contact him over craigslist. It had all happened pretty quickly - getting the news that his tío had taken ill, Nia moving back home in a matter of days, putting the ad for his place on a few websites, driving back home for the funeral.

Showing Jack around - in a daze.

Jack wasn't sold at first. Gabe could tell, just watching him poke around all the sudden holes in the apartment that Nia had left empty. He hadn't had the words at the time to convince anyone to stay with him.

Then he'd showed Jack the kitchen. It had been early afternoon. The sun came up through the window and lit on the glasses drying golden in the rack. Gabe knew a selling point when he cleaned one - every counter-top _gleamed_.

Gabe had watched Jack's face open up; and he'd smiled for the first time in days.

'Lots of counter space,' Jack had murmured.

'Brand new appliances, too,' Gabe added, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms. 'The landlord had all the kitchens renovated just a few months ago.'

'Mm.' Jack took another lingering look around, then turned back to Gabe. His gaze was warm, focused. 'So when can I move in?'

So in about-- two weeks, Gabe lost an uncle and got a new roommate.

They don't really see each other much at first: Gabe fully buries himself in work the first few months after Roberto dies - his way of coping - and notices only after easing back a little (or rather, after being _strongly_ encouraged to ease back a little) that Jack is rarely home at night. 

It turns out, on the days Jack doesn't go into the institute for his classes, he works part-time at one of two different restaurants.

'How are you not dying?' Gabe asks him, the very first Saturday they're both home. A quick catch-up conversation in the kitchen turned into coffee, which turned into chilaquiles with eggs shared from the skillet.

Jack snorts, topping up Gabe's plate with the last of the cheesy onions and chips. 'Believe me,' he says, 'I've got it easy. I'm doing this to play catch-up - I'm just not learning fast enough. But if I needed to quit either of my jobs, I would be fine - I've got savings, I don't have kids, I don't have student loans, or medical debt. I've got options.'

Gabe, who'll probably be paying off his architectural degree even after he retires, smiles with all his teeth. 'Sure,' he says, 'but when's the last time you took a night off?'

Jack shoots him a look. 'When's the last time you did?'

This is how Gabe ends up driving Jack an hour north into the mountains and parking out under the sky while the stars peek out at dusk. 'Aren't you glad you wore your thick coat now?' Gabe teases, nudging him from where they sit on the hood of his car.

'I'm a farmer's boy,' Jack says, 'I don't get cold easy.'

Well, _that's_ too bizarre a statement not to get a follow-up on. They trade stories about growing up in LA versus Indianapolis - Gabe's first time surfing - Jack's first time skiing - Jack's time as a stockbroker in New York - Gabe's time as a grandson in New Mexico - their favourite movies (they've got _Kill Bill_ in common) - their favourite music (they'll, ah... they'll work on Jack's taste) - friends they've left behind - the things they want for their families - the things they want for themselves.

Jack recognises more stars than Gabe does, even though he'd been in an astronomy club in college. 'I had a crush on the supervisor,' Gabe admits. They get hungry. Jack drives them back down into the city - apparently he knows a great Vietnamese place somewhere - while Gabe tells him all about his First Big Gay Heartbreak, about how he figured out he could like men the same way as he did women. In return, over four exquisite banh mi sandwiches, Jack tells him all about his first few relationships with women - 'I almost got married' - gradually coming to terms with how he felt about men, then, finally, coming out to his parents.

The night is cool. They get ice cream anyway: Rocky Road for Gabe, strawberry for Jack. They eat their cones circling round the block on foot. Jack talks about his parents: white, conservative, undemonstrative. Surprisingly supportive of Jack's chef dream.  
  
Someone got hit on the sidewalk near the crosswalk, Gabe sees. There's tall glass candles and streamers on a chain link fence nearby. A little heart pillow on top of a white stick. There's a photo print-out of the person - her name is blotted, maybe from rain or sun exposure. She's smiling. It could've happened a month ago; it could've happened yesterday. Gabe lowers his head in respect as they pass.

'--very new for all of us,' Jack is saying. 'It was hard for them to accept at first. But now... now I think they just worry that I'm lonely out here.'

'Are you?' Gabe asks. He is thinking about death now; he is thinking about living in the margins of others' grief. About living in the margins of his own.

Jack hums. 'That's the question, isn't it?' he says. 'I don't really have time to be lonely. Or maybe I just haven't thought about it.' He pauses. Gabe is still thinking. 'What about you? Are you...? Lonely?'

' _Am I lonely_ ,' Gabe murmurs. He sucks in a breath through the sides of his teeth. 'I don't know. I think I miss... being loved.'

'Hm,' says Jack, 'I don't think I've actually ever been in love.' Oh - maybe he misheard. 'You want the rest of this? I think I'm full.'

Startled, Gabe laughs in his face - he's still working on his own ice cream. 'You coward - it's mostly waffle cone! Finish it yourself.'

Jack blushes. 'Alright,' he mumbles. 'Maybe I'll just... go for two scoops next time.'

Next time? Oh, next time, they should--

Gabe blinks, and narrows his eyes at his own line of thinking before it even gets started. This wasn't a date, he thinks firmly. It was-- an outing. An _excursion_. Made by two roommates... Thereby allowing them to get to know each other better.

'Ahh,' Jack sighs, licking his lips. He finished that cone pretty quick! Or maybe Gabe just wasn't paying attention. 'That was nice. Thanks for this, Gabe.' He smiles - oof, his smile's a killer. 'Let's go home, huh?'

Oof. Oof-oof-oof. 'Haha, sure, no problem,' Gabe says, unsteadily. Ice cream drips down onto his fingers. 'We should do it again soon.'

* * *

This is Gabe. Gabe has a crush.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- For the chilaquiles, I was sort of envisioning [this](https://www.tablespoon.com/recipes/chicken-chilaquiles-with-fried-egg/cef9ae9c-f1e8-45ac-ad26-66eebff2bd94), but the accompanying recipe has chicken, no instructions for making a salsa/sauce, and is branded garbage. [This](https://inmamamaggieskitchen.com/chilaquiles-with-fried-eggs-or-chilaquiles-con-huevos-fritos/) is a much better recipe. As the author notes, for chilaquiles verdes, make or use salsa verde; for chilaquiles rojos, make or use salsa roja.
> 
> \- Recipe for banh-mi [here](https://www.hungryhuy.com/banh-mi-recipe/).
> 
> \- Recipe for Rocky Road [here](https://www.recette-americaine.com/glaces/glace-rocky-road.php). Note that it uses pecans.
> 
> Eat well; stay safe!


	2. Chapter 2

Meet Jack. Jack is 31, turning 32 in three days. Single - gay - not looking. Busy!

 _You never make time for me_ , Vincent used to say - well, that's why they broke up. That's why Jack's almost 32 and he has almost zero social connections other than his parents, his classmates, his co-workers--

\--and Gabe. Jack doesn't have time to get into it.

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, he gets up at 5.30AM and runs 5 miles to the gym. He comes back to the apartment around 7.30, when Gabe is leaving. On those days, Jack goes into the Institute early to review his notes, then goes back and forth between classrooms and kitchens and classroom kitchens for each of his classes until evening. He serves as a waiter at Le Rêve up in the Hills till noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and he washes dishes at Taqueria 24/7 off Olvera Street every night except Sunday. 

Some days he is so tired the world seems like nothing more than a series of boxes and squares: his pillow, his phone, the mirror above the sink, the fridge, the diner he passes on his run, the apartment, the fridge, the bus, the Institute, the sink, the fridge, the bus, the tables at Le Rêve, the bus, the backdoor to Taqueria 24/7, the sink, the bus, the apartment, his pillow, his phone, the mirror above the sink...

His hours run long. If he didn't love cooking, he would be drowning. Some days he thinks he is anyway. 

Some days he gets in so early, Gabe is up already, doing his yoga for the day. On those days, Jack peeks at Gabe stretching out on the balcony till he can match their breaths together.

He tells his mother he's getting into meditation.

Sometimes he gets Sunday or Saturday off. Any free time he has, he spends studying, practising in the kitchen, or (rarely) sleeping. Or spending time with Gabe, if their schedules happen to align. 

And today? Well, today - their schedules align.

* * *

The window is open; the air outside fresh and drizzly.

'These taste better,' Gabe gestures to the rolls made with butter, sugar and eggs cooling on the left side of the stove top, as opposed to the ones made with yeast and coconut oil, which are cooling on the right. 'But they're very rich.' 

Gabe's just woken up from his nap. He normally volunteers at a nearby animal shelter - that is, on the weekends he doesn't get guilted into going to church - but he just got over a cold, and he didn't want to get any of the animals sick. (Or, in his own words: 'I didn't want to get the babies sick.' What babies? Jack had asked, deeply baffled.)

Right now Gabe's leaning against the fridge, wearing an off-black hoodie and some worn red shorts. His hair is loose and unstyled in his face. He's not wearing his contacts - Jack can tell by how he squints. He smells like - Jack breathes in quietly - that minty aftershave of his... and that lavender-lemongrass lotion one of his cousins sends every month.

'Hmm,' Jack says, watching him. Gabe makes a curious face - Jack turns away, fiddles with his phone. Loud to Less-Loud to Vibrate. 'You want them with dinner?' He smiles with his teeth and makes sure there's nothing behind them. 'I think we've got some bœuf bourguignon left in the small freezer.'

Gabe makes a frustrated noise low in his throat - Jack listens to the sound very carefully - and shakes his head. 'Dude, you can't keep feeding me all this food,' he says. 'I swear, it's going straight to my thighs.'

'Hmm,' Jack says again, pleased. 'I don't see a difference.' He slathers half a roll with honey-butter, holds it out for Gabe to sample. 'Try one with the honey-butter.'

Gabe eats the roll straight from Jack's hand, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. Gabe bites, he chews, he swallows, he breathes, he licks his lips-- 

his tongue grazes the tips of Jack's fingers. 

Jack stills. Gabe opens his eyes, his mouth shiny and plush and still open. 

They stare at each other for a moment - and then a moment more. Jack removes his hand from Gabe's mouth, and stares at him openly - tilting his head forward, taking in the way Gabe licks his bottom lip - the dark stubble on his bared throat - the sleepy warmth still in his face. 

It's raining in earnest now.

'Should I say all the reasons this isn't a good idea?' Gabe asks, sliding his eyes low and languid all over Jack's chest. Jack swallows. 'Or did you want to?'

Jack pauses - and sighs, dropping his shoulders. 'I only need one, really,' he says, rueful.

'Just one?' Gabe shrugs. 'Alright.' 

And with that, he darts a quick, playful kiss up onto Jack's mouth. 

Jack moves on instinct - or perhaps immediate, roaring need - and pulls Gabe deep into a real kiss, tangling him up against the fridge and slotting their legs together. Gabe feels so warm against him, his mouth still sweet with honey and slick with butter, it's all Jack can do just to--

 _Sometimes I wonder if you're even capable of loving another human being_. 

Jack freezes. 

On the counter his phone begins to buzz. Time for weekly meal prep.

Gabe pauses and pulls back, wide-eyed. 'Are you ok?' he asks, with clear concern. Some sloppy, spilled-over part of Jack - the part that doesn't want to wait anymore - wants to grab hold of Gabe again. 'Is that your alarm? Do you have to go?'

'I can't,' Jack says, his voice awful and obvious. He can feel his face getting hot. This is so fucking embarrassing. He doesn't even know what his fucking hang-up is here! 'I'm sorry, Gabe. I can't.'

Gabe's face softens as he looks up at him. He's not upset, Jack sees, almost going weak with relief. He reaches for Gabe helplessly.

'You don't have to,' Gabe says gently, leaning sideways into Jack's loose embrace. 'It's ok, Jack. You don't have to do a single thing you don't want to.'

'I want to,' Jack swears. 'Believe me: I really want to.'

'But you... can't,' Gabe shrugs. His arm pressing against Jack's chest. 'So we won't.'

Jack looks at him carefully. God, he's gorgeous.

'Ok,' Jack agrees softly. 'We won't.' He leans down 

and kisses him   
again - again and 

again 

and again.

At some point Gabe pulls away. His eyes are soft - his lips are swollen. 

He smiles.

'It's ok, Jack,' he says quietly. 'It's ok.' He puts his hands on either side of Jack's face - Jack looks at him miserably - then pats him sharply on his cheeks. 

'Ow,' Jack says, stung.

'Stop making that face!' Gabe says, walking backwards out of the kitchen. He maintains eye contact with him, even on the other side of the kitchen-living room window thing. 'I'm fine, you're fine, we're both fine. Ok? I'm not going to let this make things awkward between us. So,' he clears his throat, 'get back to cooking!' He grins, a little sharply this time. 'Viejito.'

Jack's chest begins to ache. 'You know,' he says, ignoring it, 'I'm really not that much older than you, ok?'

'Huh?' Gabe cups his ear. 'Did you say somethin? Cus I thought someone who's 39 said somethin!'

Jack scowls, and dismisses the alarm on his phone. It stopped buzzing after the first few minutes, thankfully. 'Stop-- meme-ing me, ok? I can tell by your enunciation that you're meme-ing. And I'm not 39!'

Gabe starts cracking up. Eyes squinting, lips wide, cheeks ruddy. Like there's no box between them: he just laughs.

Jack swallows hard, and smiles, and turns away.

Good God, he's fucked.

* * *

This is Jack. He foresees... scheduling issues on the horizon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- These are the rolls Jack makes with [ coconut oil and yeast](https://minimalistbaker.com/simple-vegan-dinner-rolls/); these are the rolls Jack makes with [ sugar, eggs, and butter](https://www.justapinch.com/recipes/bread/sweet-bread/amish-fancy-butter-and-egg-dinner-rolls.html).  
> \- Here is a recipe for [bœuf bourguignon](https://cuisine.journaldesfemmes.fr/recette/346736-boeuf-bourguignon)!  
> \- Taqueria 24/7 and Le Rêve do not (as far as I know) exist!


End file.
